Vivian woke slowly.
For the first few seconds, her mind floated in the space between sleep and awareness, her body weighed down by exhaustion. The blankets were warm, the air in the room was still, and the quiet pressed in around her like the morning hadn’t fully arrived.
For just a moment, she felt normal.
Then it hit her.
Her breath caught as memory surged forward in jagged pieces, sharp and unforgiving.
Vince’s body on the floor.
The hammer in her hands.
The wet crunch of bone.
Noah, crouching in front of her, wiping blood from her cheek.
The motel door slamming shut behind her.
A wave of nausea rolled through her, sharp enough to make her shudder beneath the sheets. Her pulse pounded in her throat, hard and uneven, every beat echoing through her skull.
Slowly, she lifted her hands, turning them over against the dim light filtering through the blinds. They were clean.
Too clean.
She had scrubbed them raw. She had torn at the skin, clawed at her own flesh until her fingers burned, but beneath her nails, in the creases of her knuckles, she swore she could still see it. A thin, faint line of red.
Not hers.
She forced her fingers to curl against the blanket, gripping it tight as if that would keep her grounded.
It wasn’t a dream.
She felt the truth settle into her bones, heavy and suffocating.
Her body ached with exhaustion, but her mind wouldn’t slow down. The sensation of swinging the hammer still lingered in her arms, the phantom weight of it pressing into her fingers. She could still feel the resistance, the way the force traveled through her body on impact, the way she had—
No.
Her jaw clenched as she squeezed her eyes shut.
Then she felt it.
Something beneath her bed.
She didn’t have to look. She already knew what it was.
Noah’s clothes.
The ones he had made her wear. The ones that still smelled like him.
A slow tremor crawled up her spine, not violent enough to shake her but deep enough to unsettle her completely. The scent of motel soap clung to her skin, artificial and sharp, a reminder that no amount of washing would make her clean again.
She couldn’t move.
The ceiling blurred above her as her chest rose and fell too fast, her body struggling to catch up to a reality she had no control over.
For a fleeting second, she told herself that if she just stayed here, nothing else would happen.
Then her phone buzzed.
The sound tore through the silence, sharp and intrusive, snapping her out of her haze.
Vivian’s breath stalled.
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She turned her head slowly, staring at the phone where it lay on her nightstand. For a moment, she didn’t move. She only watched the screen light up, illuminating the darkened room in pulses.
Another buzz. Then another.
Her hands felt like stone as she reached for it, fingers tightening around the smooth edges. The notifications blurred for a second, her eyes struggling to adjust, but then the words sharpened.
Group chats. News alerts. Campus emails.
And then—
A breaking news headline.
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN VINCENT MA FOUND DEAD IN KARAOKE BAR.
The air left her lungs.
A hollow ringing filled her ears as she stared at the words, her mind refusing to process them. It didn’t matter that she already knew. It didn’t matter that she had been there, that she had watched it happen, that she had done something worse before walking away.
Seeing it in print made it real in a way that nothing else had.
Her fingers curled around the phone so tightly that the edges bit into her skin.
Her stomach twisted violently. She wanted to look away, to throw the phone across the room, to bury herself beneath the blankets and pretend none of this was happening.
But she couldn’t.
Her hands shook as she scrolled through the notifications.
Messages flooded in from people she barely spoke to.
[holy shit did you hear about vince]
[is it true?]
[they’re saying it was bad]
[do you think it has something to do with serena?]
Serena.
Vivian’s chest clenched painfully.
Serena should have called her by now. She should have sent a message, something—anything.
Unless she already knew.
Or—
Vivian swallowed hard, the thought forming before she could stop it.
Or she was gone too.
Her stomach lurched. She barely managed to drop the phone onto the nightstand before stumbling toward the bathroom, her hands gripping the doorframe as her knees nearly buckled beneath her.
She gagged, her body convulsing as she doubled over the sink, but nothing came up.
She was empty.
Drained.
Her reflection in the mirror swam in and out of focus. Her skin was pale, her lips parted like she couldn’t catch her breath, her hair sticking to her damp forehead.
She didn’t recognize herself.
Her fingers twitched at her sides, aching to scrub, to clean, to make something about this feel different.
She turned on the faucet, the water running ice-cold over her hands. She scrubbed at her skin, harder, faster, the friction burning against her knuckles.
It wasn’t enough.
The news. The messages. The silence from Serena.
It was all closing in.
Her breath came in short, uneven bursts as she shut the water off and pressed her palms against the counter, forcing herself to stay upright.
She couldn’t stay in here.
She needed to move.
To do something.
To act normal.
Because that’s what Noah had told her to do.
She couldn’t afford to break now.
Vivian forced herself to straighten, gripping the edges of the sink until her fingers ached. Her reflection stared back at her, hollow-eyed and pale, her damp hair clinging to her skin. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept. Like someone who had seen something they shouldn’t have.
Like someone who had killed a man.
Her breath shuddered out, uneven, her pulse a dull, erratic thud in her ears.
She needed to move.
The room felt too small, the air pressing against her like walls closing in. She turned, pushing herself forward on unsteady legs, stepping back into the dim light of her dorm. The bed sat untouched, sheets slightly rumpled, but otherwise the same as when she’d first collapsed onto it.
For a brief second, she considered lying back down.
Maybe if she stayed there long enough, time would rewind. Maybe if she closed her eyes, she would wake up to a world where Vince was still alive, where Serena was still here, where Noah was still just a rival in class instead of—
She shut her eyes.
No.
No, that wasn’t how this worked.
Her fingers flexed against her sides, curling and uncurling. She had two options.
Stay here. Let it catch up. Let it devour her.
Or—
Get up. Shower. Get dressed. Go to class.
She grabbed her towel.
The motions were mechanical. She turned the shower on, not waiting for it to warm up, stepping under the spray as ice-cold water crashed against her skin. Her breath stuttered at the impact, but she didn’t move, letting the shock sink in, forcing her body to wake up, to register the present moment instead of the one she was trapped in.
It didn’t help.
No amount of scrubbing could erase the memory of blood clinging to her skin.
No amount of soap could wash away the phantom weight of the hammer in her hands.
She stayed under the water for too long, waiting for something inside her to settle, for something to click back into place. But nothing did.
Eventually, she turned the shower off and stepped out, wrapping the towel tightly around herself, her limbs trembling despite the heat that had begun to seep back into her skin.
She moved through the motions of getting dressed, her fingers pulling clothes from drawers without thinking, her body following through on habits ingrained into her for years. Socks, jeans, sweater. Her hands paused over her phone, hovering.
She should check for updates.
She should call Serena.
But the thought of pressing her finger to the screen, of seeing more messages, of scrolling through news articles she couldn’t unread—
Her throat tightened.
Not yet.
Later.
In She grabbed her bag instead, slinging it over her shoulder.
She would go to class. She would walk across campus. She would act normal.
Because that’s what Noah had told her to do.
And the terrifying part was she didn’t know how else to survive.